Hasta La Gadget!

Apple isn’t ready to offer an inexpensive, low-powered netbook yet — so why not make one yourself? In this week’s video podcast, I go over the process of installing an illegal, hacked version of Mac OS X Leopard on an MSI Wind netbook.

I start out by telling you where to download the hacked operating system software. You’ll also need to download and install a copy of OSX86 Tools[.zip]. Then I walk you through the steps of how to put the OS on a USB flash drive (at least 4GB) to copy it onto the netbook. Here are the steps for your reference, which you must follow on an authentic Mac:

1. Launch the Disk Utility app in your Utilities folder. Select your USB drive, and under the Erase tab choose Mac OS Extended (Journaled). Select the Partition tab, then click Options and select Master Boot Record. Select OK and then hit Apply.

2. With the USB drive selected in Disk Utility, select the Restore
tab. For Source, choose the image file of the hacked OS X
(MSIWindosx86.iso). For Destination, choose your USB drive. Then click Restore.

3. Launch OSX86 Tools. Click Install EFI/Run FDISK.  Install the tools, then select "Run Script." A Terminal window will open. Type in your administrator password. Then enter 4 to run Chameleon EFI. Then follow the directions listed in the Terminal window to install the code onto your USB drive.

4. Eject your USB drive. Now insert it into the MSI Wind. Hold down
F11 when booting up the Wind and choose your USB drive as the startup
disk.

5. The OS X installer will launch. When you reach Install Summary, make sure to click on Customize, choose Patches and uncheck Kernel.

6. Run the install, then reboot and you’ve got OS X on your Wind!

I also demonstrate how to swap out the Wi-Fi card with a Mac-compatible one: a Dell DW1390 Mini express card,
which costs about $10 on eBay. That’s as simple as removing the back of
the netbook, popping out the Wi-Fi card and replacing it with the Dell.

Sounds scary, right? Trust me, though: It’s not that hard. Just watch the video and follow those steps.

This week’s video podcast was produced by Annaliza Savage and edited
by Fernando Cardoso, with camera work by John Ross. It’s a little under
4 minutes long.

The iPhone has never seemed a likely contender as a smart phone for the blind (it’s certainly not designed for touch typing), which makes this case by designer Bruno Fosi all the more impressive. The Silicone Touch covers the phone’s screen and features a selection of bas-relief buttons that correspond to menu items in a custom app, allowing those with diminished sight access to all the phone’s functions, including multi-touch and finger flick scrolling. Right now it’s just a concept, but we’re hoping to see this one become a reality sooner rather than later.

[Via Yanko Design]

Filed under: Cellphones

Silicone Touch: an iPhone case for the visually impaired originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 01 Dec 2008 16:58:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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You might think you’re some kind of l337 h4x0r because you used software to unlock your iPhone. Big deal! You’ve got nothing on the Vietnamese hackers that’ll unlock your iPhone for you the hard way.

First, a technician opened up the phone and stripped it to the motherboard. In his skillful hands, the device seemed much easier to dismantle than I expected.

The technician then extracted the baseband chip, the component that controls the connection between the phone and the mobile network, from the motherboard. (This is a painstaking task as the chip is strongly glued to the phone’s motherboard. A mistake during this process could brick the phone completely.)

Once the chip was extracted, it was Tuan Anh’s turn. He used a chip reader to read information into a file. He then used a Hex editor to remove the locking data from the file, and after that, the chip got reprogrammed with the newly altered file. Now it was no longer programmed to work with only a specific provider.

The chip then got reassembled into the motherboard, another painstaking process.

As a last step, the technician put the phone back together, and it looked like nothing had been done to it.

All this for a mere $80! Call me crazy, but watching someone do this to my phone would be infinitely more satisfying than simply downloading a program to crack it. You’d feel like your phone really earned its unlocking. [Crave via Boing Boing Gadgets]

Designers with a deathwish are pushing the boundaries of bicycle design far beyond the realm of practicality into preposterous new worlds. The following 10 bikes are some of the most outrageous concepts to spring forth from this movement, and should only be operated in a controlled environment by stuntmen and circus folk.

Well it looks like folks in Korea may not have to wait until March to get their hands on iriver’s first cellphone after all, as the WavePhone (previously known simply as the “wave”) is apparently now available (or will soon be available) at ten iriver shops in the country. That limited roll-out is apparently being done ahead of the full-fledged launch including a number of larger stores, which will presumably still happen in March, although there’s unfortunately still no word of a release outside of Korea (or word of a price). As you can see above, the folks at AVING also managed to get their hands on the phone and, naturally, they’ve provided plenty pics of it, which you can check out by hitting up the link below.

Read – Reigncom
Read – AVING

[Via Electronista]

Filed under: Cellphones

iriver WavePhone hits Korea ahead of schedule originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 01 Dec 2008 15:43:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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